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The next three crew members bound for the International Space Station are set to
launch on Tuesday, Dec. 15. NASA Television will provide full coverage of the
launch beginning at 5 a.m. EST.
Astronauts Tim Kopra of NASA and Tim Peake of ESA (European
Space Agency), and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space
Agency (Roscosmos) will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at
6:03 a.m. (5:03 p.m. Baikonur time) for a six-month stay on the orbital
complex.
The three will travel in a Soyuz
spacecraft, rendezvous with the space station and dock to the Rassvet module
at 12:24 p.m. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 11:45 a.m.
The hatches between the Soyuz and space
station will be opened at about 2:25 p.m., and the newly arrived crew members
will be greeted by Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Flight
Engineers Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos. NASA TV coverage
of the hatch opening will begin at 2 p.m.
Kelly and Kornienko will return in March
2016 with Volkov after spending a year on the station
collecting valuable biomedical data that will improve our understanding of the
effects of long duration space travel and aid in NASA’s journey to Mars.
Together, the Expedition 46 crew members
will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology,
physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take
place aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory.
For the full schedule of prelaunch, launch
and docking coverage, visit:
Follow the space station crew members on
Instagram and Twitter at:
and
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